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Artificial Eye
05 January 2017

Artificial Eye

Imagine peering into the back of someone’s eye and seeing an array of electrodes like the ones here. These aren’t pictures from a Hollywood cyborg movie, but real photos of the eyeballs of blind people who have had retinal implants – microchips designed to stimulate the nerves at the back of the eye in response to light. Known as Argus II, these chips have been put into patients who have lost their sight due to a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. Although the implants don’t fully restore sight and take a lot of practice to use, they enable patients to distinguish the difference between dark and light. This improves over time, showing that the parts of the brain that receive visual information can be retrained and rewired even in adults. There’s a long way to go before these chips can truly enable the blind to see, but the picture is becoming clearer.

Written by Kat Arney

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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